Stooshe – 'London with the Lights On' album review

The girl group's debut album finally arrives, full of polished urban-pop with soupy leanings

By Alexi Duggins Fri May 24 2013

Stooshe – 'London with the Lights On'

Rated as: 3/5

Three months ago, Stooshe were primed to release their debut album. Long gone was the suggestion that here was a unique urban British pop voice, as once promised by promo single ‘Betty Woz Gone’’s cheeky ad-libs and tale of council estate crack abuse. In its place was an 11-track dawdle through love balladry that was soupier than a Campbell’s factory. However, just before release, the album was pulled due to ‘a late rush of creativitywhich has seen them write some of the best songs of their career’.

Thus, their murdering of TLC’s ‘Waterfalls’, has gone and the Girls Aloud-esque single ‘Slip’ joins the ‘Fireworks’-lite ‘Round 2’ in booting out a couple of the shmaltzier numbers. Nonetheless, they still slather themselves in sub-‘Back To Black’ doo-wop production and abandon all hope of being a distinctly British urban-pop proposition by feigning a US accent on ‘Jimmy’. ‘Black Heart’ is a winning slice of retro pop, ‘My Man Music’ curiously apes Lily Allen’s early reggae-lite shtick and ‘Love Me’ (having long since lost its subtitle of ‘F*** Me’) provides a brief moment of sass. It’s not the one-trick album it might have been, but it’s still a far cry from Stooshe’s inital promise.